Bohnen H G, Gaillard A W
Department of Psychology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands.
Ergonomics. 1994 Jun;37(6):1021-30. doi: 10.1080/00140139408963715.
The present study examines whether monitoring and control behaviour are affected by sleep loss and fatigue. The effects of one night of sleep loss are investigated in a dual-task consisting of a monotonous tracking task that requires continuous control behaviour and a time estimation task that requires monitoring with an 'open-loop' character. In the tracking task subjects had to keep a square cursor in the centre of a U-shaped target. In the time estimation task subjects had to estimate consecutive time intervals and to respond when an interval had ended. There were three experimental conditions. In the first condition a clock was presented continuously on the screen; thus, subjects had a clear notion of the time course. In the second condition subjects could obtain time information by pressing a key. In the third condition subjects could not obtain time information, but the status of the time interval could be obtained by pressing a key; that is, information was given whether a time interval had ended or not. The present study confirms earlier findings that tracking performance is sensitive to sleep loss particularly towards the end of the half hour working session. In contrast, time estimation performance was not impaired, although subjects tended to make more observations when deprived of sleep. This result would not have been expected on the basis of a decreased level of activation due to sleep loss. It appears, however, that checking the time course with a motor response requires less effort than continuously updating an internal clock, which puts heavy demands on working memory. The observed difference between the tasks with respect to the vulnerability to sleep loss is explained in terms of their motivating properties.
本研究考察了监测和控制行为是否会受到睡眠不足和疲劳的影响。通过一项双重任务来研究一晚睡眠不足的影响，该双重任务包括一项需要持续控制行为的单调跟踪任务和一项需要“开环”式监测的时间估计任务。在跟踪任务中，受试者必须将一个方形光标保持在U形目标的中心。在时间估计任务中，受试者必须估计连续的时间间隔，并在一个间隔结束时做出反应。有三种实验条件。在第一种条件下，屏幕上持续显示一个时钟；因此，受试者对时间进程有清晰的概念。在第二种条件下，受试者可以通过按键获得时间信息。在第三种条件下，受试者无法获得时间信息，但可以通过按键获得时间间隔的状态；也就是说，会告知一个时间间隔是否已经结束。本研究证实了早期的研究结果，即跟踪性能对睡眠不足敏感，尤其是在半小时工作时段接近尾声时。相比之下，时间估计性能并未受损，尽管受试者在睡眠不足时倾向于进行更多观察。基于睡眠不足导致的激活水平下降，这个结果是出乎意料的。然而，似乎通过运动反应检查时间进程比持续更新内部时钟所需的努力更少，而持续更新内部时钟对工作记忆有很高要求。关于睡眠不足易感性方面任务之间观察到的差异，是根据它们的激励特性来解释的。
